For immediate release

The Federal Reserve Board today announced further reductions in the Reserve Banks' automated clearing house (ACH) fees. The new ACH fee schedule is effective May 1, 1997. The Federal Reserve has reduced its ACH fees three times within the past twelve months. These price reductions reflect the efficiencies of the Federal Reserve's centralized Fed ACH processing environment. Under the new ACH volume-based fee schedule, the cost to originate ACH transactions will decline by an average of 17 percent. Customers that deposit files of less than 2,500 items will be assessed a file fee of $1.75 and a per-item fee of $0.009. Customers that deposit files of more than 2,500 items will be assessed a file fee of $6.75 and a per-item fee of $0.007. The cost to receive ACH transactions will decline by 10 percent to $0.009 for all customers. The Federal Reserve Board also adopted guidelines for the use of volume-based fee structures for Reserve Bank payment services effective March 25, 1997. Volume-based fees are an extension of multipart fees currently used by Reserve Banks. The use of volume-based fees has the potential to improve payment system efficiency. The Board's notice is attached.

Summary only | Summary and notice (32 KB PDF)

1997 Banking and consumer regulatory policy